Sometimes you have to think in a hurry

Chuck Boutwell

Friday

Dec 26, 2008 at 3:00 PM

At a party recently, the second-worst thing that could happen in the bathroom happened to me.

Of course, the first worst outcome of a bathroom visit at someone elseís house involves a flush that is rising faster than it is going down. People become instantly religious and try to make a deal with God as quickly as possible.

The second-worst thing that could happen is for the toilet to malfunction in a less dramatic way. This is especially bad for a person who is uncomfortable around strangers and is at a party thrown by a new friend. Actually the party was thrown by an old friend and her new boyfriend, but it would not have kicked my relationship with him off to a good start if I were to cause a plumbing-related ruckus at the first party heíd invited me to. This could make one much less likely to be invited to a second party.

Besides Iím shy. I sometime forget Iím shy ó especially at a party with a bunch of people I donít know. Iím so jealous of that guy who can walk into a room of strangers and just jump into the flow.

ďHi, my name is Eddie. Whatís your Ö? Nice to meet you, Tony. What do you doÖ? Oh, a mortician. People must be dying to meet you. Ha ha haÖĒ

Iím not that guy.

Donít get me wrong, when I get comfortable, I enjoy funny and friendly conversations and cutting up as much as anyone, and I can keep up pretty well. Itís just that I have a hard time getting comfortable. In fact at this party, it wasnít until maybe three hours later that I started to relax and cut up.

However, it was a while before reaching that stage that the plumbing situation began to unfold. It wouldnít flush. I was almost in a panic. I couldnít leave the bathroom with a unflushed, smelly commode to find the host and report the situation.

So, I opened up the back of the tank and started to fiddle with things. Maybe itís just something hung up on or tangled up in something else and will function properly if unhung or detangled.

No such luck. Stay calm.

Maybe if I fill the tank manually, I can get one good flush out of it. If Iím lucky, the shower next to the toilet will have a showerhead on a long hose that will reach the tank.

But no. My bad luck was still holding up. Okay. Take a breath. Think.

What would MacGyver do? He would probably fashion some kind of improvised water-delivery system using two empty shampoo bottles, an arm from a raincoat and a few feet of duct tape.

Or would that be aqueduct tape in this situation?

But no duct tape was to be had.

In the standard ďMacGyverĒ episode, there comes a moment where the camera slowly pans across the room so that our hero can make a quick inventory of the resources available to him. I do the same. Shower, shower curtain, a variety of soaps, shampoos and the like, a cup containing toothbrushes, a mirror, a sink, a rugÖ Hey, wait. A cup.

So I start filling the tank with water from the sink using the toothbrush cup. What? Maybe a five-gallon tank? Filled eight ounces at a time? It took a while. I began to hope that no one was wondering what took me so long.

But I managed to fill the tank. I got one good flush in, and I was ready to flee the scene of the crime.

However, my conscience was bugging me. Should I refill the tank again for the next person? I was considering it. But it took so long to fill it the first time, I was certain someone would come looking for me if I stayed long enough for a second filling. Besides (I rationalized), chances are that at a party, the next person to use the facility would more than likely use it for its other, less-stinky function and that would be much easier to handle than a nonflushing toilet.

A while later, one of my friends went to the bathroom. I started to feel guilty for abandoning him. But it was too late to do anything about it.

A few minutes later, we all began to notice a commotion. The toilet friend and the host friend were coming and going from the bathroom with badly executed furtive looks on their faces and many laughs. They were anything but nonchalant. In fact, the toilet friend was so chalant that at one point, his head popped out of the bathroom door topped with a monk wig.

For some reason, we all had to get up and see what was going on.

Before long, the bathroom and its doorway were filled with people laughing as one poor soul was filling a wine bottle in the tub and dumping it into the tank.

Between laughs, he explained the situation. Of course, I knew already. After everyone cleared out, I went to kind of apologize for leaving him on his own like that.

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